How Panopto can benefit our students – a personal story

Written by Danny Elvidge [Senior Lecturer in Building Physics and Services]

I’ve fallen in love with Panopto since being trained up two years ago. I now record all of my lectures and many of my tutorials. The feedback from my students has never been better. I’m convinced it helps me serve students who may not be able to attend all lectures. It allows those who may have disengaged to catch up and, at the very least, it means I’m not constantly repeating myself! However, I recently discovered an unexpected benefit.

One morning last week I awoke very ill. I had lectures and tutorials all day and knew my absence would disadvantage my students as well as throwing my own timetable into chaos. Panopto solved all my problems. I sent out an early announcement to my students explaining that I couldn’t attend but that a replacement video lecture (recorded a year previously) was about to be placed on Blackboard. When I was feeling better I produced a video tutorial covering all of the topics and calculations we were due to cover that day and then posted this on Blackboard. Panopto and Blackboard enabled me to take care of myself and recover from my illness without being worried that my students, and my own planning, were being negatively impacted.

[Desktop recording also came in useful for some staff during the recent snow closure day at UWE.]